Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to TV displays, and in particular, to automatically formatting media content for display on a TV screen.
Description of the Related Art
Movies and television programming use various image size formats for projecting images onto movie screens or television displays. Formats that have been used historically originated in the film industry and were based on the size of individual frames used in motion picture film, e.g., 28 mm, 35 mm, and so on. The high-definition format currently in use for broadcast television in the U.S. (HDTV) has an aspect ratio of 16:9, meaning the picture is rectangular, having dimensions of 16 units wide and 9 units high. The 16:9 aspect ratio is equivalently expressed as the normalized ratio 1.77:1. Other aspect ratios commonly used for video include widescreen TV format having an aspect ratio of 4:3, equivalent to 1.33:1, various intermediate aspect ratios between 1.33:1 and 1.77:1, 1.85:1, and 2.4:1. Older TV shows that were originally filmed for widescreen TV, and older movies, can be re-mastered by a production studio to convert the format to the 1.77:1 format.
With the recent advent of many types of displays, the video content may not have a standard aspect ratio of a type commonly used. For example, videos are being recorded on many different brands of cell phones, video cameras, and various portable electronic devices. With the wide availability of many types of video recording devices and video cameras, the aspect ratio of a particular recorded video cannot be easily determined in advanced, and may vary over a wide range. In addition, a large number of different displays are now available. Displays can be as small as a watch or a cell phone, and as large as the size of a wall. Further, the aspect ratio of a particular display may not fit any standard, and may vary widely from one display to another.
The term high definition (HD), as it is used today, refers to a high density video image having a resolution of at least 1280×720 pixels, projected onto a display at a frame rate of 60 frames/sec, or 60 Hz. More specifically, HD video has 720 horizontal lines and 1280 vertical columns, wherein 1280/720=16:9=1.77. While a standard SD-DVD disc stores up to 4.5 GB of standard resolution video image data, a typical HD-DVD video disc stores up to 15 GB of HD video image data.
TV displays typically allow viewers to configure the screen differently as needed for different resolution programs having different aspect ratios. Depending on the screen size and the format of the program, the video images may fill the entire screen, or there may be black vertical or horizontal sidebars at the edges of the screen, filling in the unused portion, or a portion of the image may bleed off the screen and not be visible. The viewer may have to decide whether to make the image size smaller than the screen and tolerate the sidebars, or lose some of the picture because it is too big to fit on the screen. Once the viewer adjusts the screen according to the desired format for the current program, if the viewer switches channels or if a commercial comes on, the adjustment made for the initial program may not be suitable for the new video images. For example, commercials may be distorted or a new show may be partially off the screen, thus requiring the viewer to manually re-adjust the format settings every time they switch from one program to another. Such constant re-adjustment is a nuisance for the viewer.
In the case of commercials in particular, it is unlikely that a viewer will bother to manually adjust the format settings for each new commercial that is broadcast. As a result, commercial advertising messages may be lost on the audience because viewers are distracted by distorted commercial images. Alternatively, a portion of the commercial message that exceeds the size of the screen may not be visible, which could impair its effectiveness in marketing to the viewer.